New Breed of Exchange-Traded Product Won’t Be Available for Months

Investors shouldn’t expect to see NextShares, the new breed of funds from Eaton Vance, until at least the second half of this year.

The Boston-based asset manager won regulatory approval to launch the funds, known as exchange-traded managed funds or ETMFs, late last year and dubbed them NextShares.

There’s still a lot of work to be done before the funds, which will have attributes of both exchange-traded funds and mutual funds, reach the market, says Tom Faust, chief executive of Eaton Vance. Their launch date could even slip into next year, he says.

ETMFs will be actively managed funds, not index funds. They will trade on an exchange like ETFs, but they won’t disclose their holdings daily, as almost all ETFs do.